Tag Archives: ethan bortnick

When 10-year-old piano phenom Ethan Bortnick passed through Nashville recently, the Florida native marveled at the freshly fallen snow and commented it might be his favorite thing about visiting here.

“This is something we don’t have in Florida,” he says.

Still, out of fear he might get sick or hurt his fingers before finishing his 20-city tour, he wasn’t allowed to go outside. But Bortnick isn’t a child who dwells on what he’s missing — or the uniqueness of his talent; he views himself as “a regular kid who plays a little piano.”

Regular? Well, not exactly. He has played on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno four times (he even wrote the comedian a song), Oprah, Good Morning America and The Early Show (on CBS) and is the youngest musician to ever land a one-hour PBS concert special.

He’s played for audiences as large as 20,000, but on Jan. 20 his concert tour brings him to the intimate Belcourt Theatre.

The Tennessean talked to the prodigy about the local show, his music, his tour and what it’s like to grow up in the spotlight.

When did you know you wanted to be a piano player?

I was begging my parents for a piano when I was 3, but they were like, ‘No, you’re still in diapers.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ I had a little toy keyboard, and we didn’t really have a piano. You know those Baby Einstein DVDs? I loved them. I loved them! And so all of a sudden I just started playing on my little toy keyboard what I heard on Baby Einstein. I loved the Mozart one. Then my parents said I could get piano lessons after that.

Tickets to "Keys to Music City" are on sale now, and tickets for the Belcourt concert go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, October 22.

Ethan's tour follows in the footsteps of his PBS special, Ethan Bortnick and his Musical Time Machine, which will be released on DVD and CD on October 26. You can watch a trailer for the DVD after the jump.Continue reading →